American Pioneer Posts Loss For Latest Quarter

November 21, 1989|By Kenneth Michael of The Sentinel Staff

American Pioneer Inc., based in Orlando, reported Monday that it lost $6.81 million in the quarter ended Sept. 30, boosting the thrift holding company's losses to $17.34 million for the first nine months of the year.

After the company paid dividends on preferred stock, the net loss as it affected common stockholders was $7.18 million in the third quarter and $20.44 million for the nine-month period.

Last year, the company's loss after payment of preferred stock dividends was $4.06 million in the third quarter and $4.54 million for the nine-month period.

Dividend payments were halted in August when the company's preferred stock was exchanged for common shares as part of a major restructuring sparked by the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act.

The third-quarter results were an improvement over the second quarter, when the company went $8.71 million into the red. Most of the third-quarter improvement resulted from progress in resolving problem loans and the halt in payment of preferred dividends.

American Pioneer said in a statement that ''these results should continue to improve as efforts to return the problem assets to earning status are successful.''

The quarterly loss was the seventh in a row for the parent company of American Pioneer Savings Bank, which, as a troubled financial institution, was placed under the federal Office of Thrift Supervision in August.

The new reform law is forcing American Pioneer to sell its insurance company and possibly other assets, such as its home-building subsidiary, to improve its net worth. The company must raise more than $75 million in the next four years to comply with the new thrift law.

In April, the company announced plans to sell 13 Orlando-area branches to Southeast Banking Corp. of Miami for $50 million, which would eliminate the company's banking presence in Central Florida.

Susan Leadem, an analyst with the brokerage Robinson-Humphrey Co. Inc. in Atlanta, said American Pioneer appears to be following an industry trend since the enactment of the reform law that established higher capital requirements for thrifts. ''It makes sense that they are paring down and finding ways to shrink, and this is what they are doing,'' she said.

Total problem loans dropped to $149.3 million as of Sept. 30 from $166.4 million June 30.

The company's insurance operations showed a profit of $788,000 for the quarter and $2.15 million for the nine-month period.

American Pioneer had assets of $2.3 billion and liabilities of $2.2 billion as of Sept. 30.